


Through the Looking Glass

by DarthSuki



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, M/M, Multi, Reader-Insert, Season 2 spoilers, Sign Language, Slow Burn, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 09:58:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17847242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthSuki/pseuds/DarthSuki
Summary: You are the head keeper of the Katolis Castle, the one in charge of everything from the castle's structural integrity to the morale of the people who live within its sturdy walls. You like to think you know everything there is to know about the history and sometimes chaotic, maze-like sprawling of the castle itself--but when Lord Viren is arrested and a section of previously-unknown dungeon caverns is revealed, you come to realize that there might be a lot more to the castle, to Katolis and even to history than you ever thought possible.And it all centers around a very ancient, very powerful mirror and the wondrous, dangerous man who dwells within it.





	Through the Looking Glass

**Author's Note:**

> This was literally supposed to be a short pwp but then my brain kept spinning more ideas and welp, now it looks like it's a bit more than that ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ keep your eyes out because it's definitely gonna have some smut as early as next chapter, and I'm down to explore this new hot elf man along with you guys. 
> 
> Feel free to scream stuff at me about him over on [my tumblr!](http://darthsuki.tumblr.com/)

As the head keeper of Katolis Castle, you often like to think you know everything that happens within its carefully-fortified walls. Every birth, every death, every detail of day-to-day life that came and went with each setting sun. You’ve been the head keeper for as long as you can be called an adult--the title came with your heritage, the passing of the torch from parent to child since the original founding of the castle, no, the from the very first breath that Katolis took as a kingdom.

It’s a position you’re proud of, in any regard, so finding out any level of secrets that evaded your knowing is like realizing there’s a knife stuck in your leg; it hurts deeply as much as it surprises you. How in the world could you not have noticed, have seen something so obvious? Others could certainly turn a blind eye without realizing it, but you are different! The head keeper of Katolis Castle, learning there was a plethora of passages and rooms extending beyond what you thought was but a humble dungeon?

For shame.

But that’s exactly what you learned just a day or so ago, wrapped up with the capture of Lord Viren and discovery of such an unknown passage behind a painting in one of his personal libraries. Opeli put you in charge of investigation while she took care of Viren’s punishment in his treasonous crimes against the kingdom.

The king’s death is still so fresh in everyone’s mind that it’s hard to take her orders without some sense of unease, if only because you’re at least somewhat afraid at what you’d learn lay in the darkest corners of such untouched caverns beneath the castle. Perhaps that isn’t the right word; it makes it sound as if you’re unwilling--concerned sounds much better as an accurate reflection of your emotional state. Concerned for the kingdom, concerned for the lost princes, concerned for what will happen next.

You decide to explore the dungeons alone.

It’s stupid, yes, you know that, but something tugging at your mind told you that it was unwise to bring others with you. Maybe you needed the quiet, maybe you needed to process things in isolation, maybe still you’re still trying to unravel the anxiety and fear that’s yet to spill from the Xadian border.

You’ve been in the dungeons before. Many times, in fact, usually for purposes of ensuring structural integrity of the stone after strong rainstorms. The last thing anyone needed is a small crack being the forefather to the entire castle coming down above their heads. It isn’t exactly a common thing, and you quite wanted to keep it that way.

“What sorts of things were you hiding down here?”

Your voice follows you as you step down the winding staircase, descending farther than you once assumed that the dungeons went into the hill below the castle. You originally thought that Viren’s secret passage was simply another entrance, but it quickly became obvious it was much more than that--leading into an entire new section of passageways and rooms you’d never known existed.

It takes you a few minutes to reach the bottom of the stairs. It’s quiet. The air is damp, humid and cold, enough that it chills you despite the layers of clothes you wear.

Though you’ve grown intensely familiar with almost every inch of the castle, having lived exclusively within its walls since childhood, you’re rather taken-aback by how utterly unfamiliar you are with the walls around you. There’s a passage down one way, a turn in another, a series of small rooms across from the foot of the staircase and….there's just so much, you’re not quite sure where to even begin.

How did nobody know about this? How did you never know about this?

You allow yourself a few seconds to feel the shock spill down your thoughts. For a few heartbeats you feel as if a child again, clutching fearfully at your mentor’s shirt as they introduce you to the section of the dungeon you now know is but a fragment of what exists beneath Katolis Castle.

Shadows dance on the walls as you hold your torch-held hand outwards, hoping to get as much detail as possible without having to step forward.

You shouldn’t forget that this served as Viren’s secret for however long it’s existed--there’s no telling if he’s set traps anywhere. You’re plenty quick on your feet, but it’s not as if you’d have much over the wit of someone with many years of dark magic experience.

Everything is silent.

Silent and dark.

You consider going back after a few moments, hurrying up the spiral staircase and requesting the aid of soldiers in the case there’s something genuinely dangerous down there, but a feeling of pride and curiosity keeps you still.

“...Is there anyone down here?” You hear yourself calling out into the darkness, the faint echo of yourself the only response. “Anyone at all? Anything? No dark magic demons or ancient portals?”

The sound of a voice, even if it’s your own, calms your nerves a little bit. It helps to offset the bubbling fear in your stomach.

You finally take a step forward, and then another when nothing flies out at you from one of the walls. A third step, a fourth, and you’re standing at last in the center of the entry room. The light from the flickering torch casts more of the room into light, showcasing several options of passageways on one side or the other of you, with only one directly ahead.

Indecision strikes you like a knife, pressing into your thoughts in one sharp motion before you even feel it. It leaves you twisting your head from one side to the other in growing nervousness for what passage to start with first (would you get lost?) and what each one might be hiding (do not underestimate what Viren may be hiding).

Just as you’re about to take a step towards one of the entrances to your left, something stops you.

For a moment, the world seems to stop.

You freeze in place with a sudden tickle in your ears, a brush of wind that cannot exist in an underground cavern. It’s not the near-impossible wind that stills your motions and thoughts, but the slow realization that what you feel in your ears is not merely a breeze, but a whisper.

A whisper of a voice.

With locked joints and tense muscles your mind immediately tries to decipher the sound gently filling your ears. It’s nearly impossible as trying to understand the sound of the very breeze you assumed it to be, but it’s definitely a whisper, a trailing of words that you can hear all together but yet don’t comprehend.

There’s a thread suddenly in your thoughts. It’s cold, dark and weak but wraps around your mind and starts to tug.

It pulls just hard enough to feel a warm, undeniable presence. Your eyes flick towards the single passage on the opposite side of the room from the stairs, all without your own doing. The whispering grows louder as you peer into the darkness of the hallway.

There's something down here with you, lurking in the dark shadows and unfamiliar corners.

The whispering is still muddled. You can’t make out any specific words even as the voice gets stronger in your ears, louder and louder as you continue to stare at the open, dark passageway. The longer that you listen, the harder the tug starts to become, the more you realize that you can’t make out the words because it's in a foreign-sounding tongue.

The consonants are sharp and the vowels somehow even sharper, tickling against your mind in curious waves and delicate licks against your ears.

Its unknown if it's the thrall of the voice or the burning curiosity in your belly that drives your feet, but you're moved towards the darkness all the same. One step after another until you're swallowed by the passage, until the flame of your torch starts to weaken and pass less and less over the stone walls and flooring ahead of you.

The passage isn't long at least--you reach the end of it in only a dozen paces and come upon a door. It's tall, aged oak with rich swirls of color in the wood and iron fastenings keeping the planks together. There's a lock near the handle--it looks like it requires an old key, the sort you are aptly familiar with in your experience of learning an old castle’s secrets.

The whispering is nearly deafening by this point, fueling your curiosity into a voracious flame that seems to burn away all other thoughts of caution and logic. It encompasses everything of you, until you feel nothing but a shell of yourself, watching passively as your free hand reaches towards the handle-

-and, slowly, you turn it.

It’s unlocked.

The shock is strong enough that you seem to come back to yourself, blinking in momentary bewilderment that such a door would be left unlocked, but what exactly did you expect otherwise? Doors usually functioned to open.

Though part of you knows it would be best to return to Opeli and request help, that thread in your thoughts all but snatches the desire away and burns it to ashes.

No.  
  
You need to be alone.  
  
With a swallow, you pull the door back in a slow, careful motion, cautious for any traps that may have been set up for someone foolish thought to waltz right through--you've seen Viren in combat, you know exactly what the man is capable if pushed.  
  
Hairs stand up on the back of your neck as your heartbeat quickens in preparation for anything. A burst of flame, a lunging sword, a falling mace over your head--so many possibilities, each of them more horrible than the last--but there's nothing to greet you when the door falls open in your hand, fingers gripping tight around the metal handle.  
  
Nothing.  
  
You blink, staring into the darkness of the room that lays beyond the door. Little of the warm glow from the torch is able to move past the opening, leaving you with nothing but cracked stone to see within your view, the rest swallowed up by nothing but shadow. Your grip suddenly feels too tight around the handle; you let it fall with a breath, a pondering of thoughts to the seemingly empty room before you.  
  
The whispering has stopped. You’re not quite sure when it happened, when your ears finally stopped ringing with the sound of words you didn’t even understand. It had been deafening but moments ago and now, with the door opened and your eyes taking in all the emptiness of but a single, humble jail cell, you can’t help but feel disturbed by the utter lack of noise.  
  
The silence is deafening.  
  
Though your mouth feels dry and your limbs heavy with worry, you feel yourself take  a step forward. Then a second step, and finally a third. You enter the room with a discernible lack of confidence you held but moments ago, carefully letting both eyes and light sweep across the room.  
  
There isn’t very much to see, but what you do find captures your attention instantly: a chair, a table, a handful of items on said table and…a mirror?  
  
You blink and turn your body towards the questionable item sitting in the corner of the room, positioned so it’s the very last thing you take in, the last thing that you notice. Your thoughts had already been rolling over the possibility that the small cell had been used for some sort of torture–considering the collection of items on the table and the set of handcuffs hanging from the opposite wall–but the mirror throws your train of investigative thought for a loop.

What would Viren have need for with a mirror? Though most of you doesn’t want to ponder too long on the meaning or the implications of such a piece, you can’t stop yourself from prodding against the edges of that fragile barrier. Curiosity is far too strong of an emotion, and you far too familiar with its tug to ignore it for very long.

It’s an ornate piece, decorated by twisted metal of origins you can’t place. Runes cover the mirrors outer edges; they are of a language you don’t know, perhaps they are even magical. There are plenty of things you’ve picked up over the many years of your careful love over the castle, but dark magic or Xadian culture is not one of them. Your fingers reach out to trace several of the alien shapes, briefly wondering what sort of meaning they hold, if any at all. They could be words of blessings or curses for all that you know, especially since you scarcely can place a reason that Viren would have a mirror in a jail cell, and likely one used for torture.

You recall that Commander Gren had been found down here upon its opening. You remember him being weak, helped up by two soldiers and looking famished and dehydrated. You remember him being in warm spirits, but with a look in his eyes that you dared not to ask about–it’s a look you’ve seen before, a look shared by soldiers who have seen firsthand the nightmares of war and death.

It’s obvious Gren was not the person held within this cell. When discovered, he bared no marks of torture and spoke with ease, his warm spirit unbroken and still filled with his familiar mirth.

No, there had been someone else held in this cell. You can’t place a perfect finger on anything in particular, but you _know_ that someone else had suffered through this cold darkness. Your eyes shift from the mirror, instead over to the shackles bolted to the stone wall.

Someone had been sitting there, chained up–you know it, you can _feel_ it deep in your bones, but you can’t begin to wonder how long ago it had been, how long Viren had been keeping someone down in this dungeon and out of the knowledge of Katolis’ High Council.

_How much is Viren hiding?_

It’s a question you know is far from your status, high above your head and out of your reach. You are the head keeper of the castle, but that doesn’t inherently make you privy to each and every scrap of information passed between those who rule your kingdom–that is something that aggravates you often these days, wanting to do everything you can for your country but being resigned merely to the care of the castle and all that went on within its walls.

It’s the first thing a keeper needs to learn, but it’s also the hardest.

 _Curiosity killed the cat_ , your mentor had stressed in telling you. _Keep the castle a heaven so that the country doesn’t turn to hell_.

Still, it bothers you deeply that so much pain happened just below the castle, beneath where you slept and felt so at-peace. To think that Viren hid so many things, to think that he would risk to much and betray his own people, imprison a Katolis commander and even torture one of his own-

No.

You shake your head in sharp motions to stop the train of thoughts from leaving your control like a wild hare. What’s done is done, and you are here to do your job. After a slow breath and a few moments to compose yourself, you decide to take a closer look at the small table sitting beside the mirror.

As the light from the flickering torch draws nearer, the tools reveal themselves not to be devices of torture, but something else entirely. In fact, you’re not even sure what they were used for–though it’s obvious that they have been used to come capacity. A cup, a piece of embroidered cloth, two halves of a crystalline-lined geode and a knife?

The knife must have been what caught your attention first, leading your thoughts instantly to the idea of outright torture; there’s a speckling of dried blood against the blade, haphazardly smeared as if the user didn’t think to clean the metal until long after it was fresh. You stare at it for a few moments, trying to piece together what the items could even have been used for-

-and then it hits you all at once.

Magic.

Just as your mind wraps itself around the word, you feel a pressure against your mind. It’s cold and powerful, like the weight of several dozen stones all driving down and into your very thoughts. The impact is so strong and sudden that it leaves you physically reeling away from it, one unsteady step backwards even leaving you unbalanced; you’re falling, suddenly, your own feet as if not knowing how to right yourself when your heel catches the uneven edge of a stone of the flooring.

You have just enough time and thought to grab the back of the chair next to you, though you have to drop the torch in order to keep yourself from falling back and likely cracking your head against one stone surface or another. Instinct keeps you safe, but it certainly doesn’t stop the fact that in the span of a heartbeat you’re left with an adrenaline-fueled heartbeat, a bead of sweat down your back and a pitch-black room as the light from your already-weakened torch goes out completely.

“Fuck,” you curse, hands clenching the shape of the chair’s back, less to hold you up and more to have some physical touch to something else in the darkened room. “Fuck, where’s the door?”

The door is still opened to the hallway, and while you can detect the _faintest_ of light from the stairs all the way back at the entrance, it’s just too soft and too far to do much but give you an idea of the direction to walk. Without a light to guide you, all you can hope to do is make it back to the stairway and to the dungeons entrance; then you can swallow down your pride and curiosity to ask for not only another torch, but also a spare few soldiers to help you explore.

You stumble around the chair for a few moments, barely able to put one foot ahead of the other without tripping over your own steps on the uneven stone flooring. All you need to do is get to the doorway and then let your hands press to the wall and lead yourself back to the stairs.

Just as your hand leaves the anchoring touch of the chair, you see the outline of the door with enough detail to walk steadily in its direction.

Wait.

You’re several steps from the doorway when you realize that’s impossible. There’s no other sources of light with you, your torch has completely died–how are you seeing anything at all?

One thought leads to another before you think to turn towards the source. The glow is soft, almost sky blue in color and it’s….coming from the mirror. Confusion fills your mind up twice over as the realization comes to fruition. It leaves you dumbstruck and staring at the object in some combination of awe and curiosity until you catch what seems to be a shape just behind its reflective surface.

A shape, many shapes–all it takes is a blink of your eyes and what was once nothing more than an ornate mirror suddenly looks like a window. Instead of a reflection, you see a room, as if one exists just behind the mirror and the glass is nothing more than a thin pane separating it from this dreary, musty old jail cell.

It seems impossible, but yet you can’t deny that it’s real, you’re seeing it with your very own eyes.

Before you can stop yourself, you’re stepping closer and pressing your hands to the cold surface, taking in more and more of the room just beyond and behind the mirror.

It’s beautiful, magical in both literal and metaphorical sense, like things of old storybooks and fairytales children would year from their parents. You can see an empty fireplace and shelves upon shelves of books towering around it, a collection that looks organized in some form though you can’t read the titles on the spines. There’s a window, a desk, there’s plants of all sorts scattered about the room–you don’t even recognize any of them–and then you have to force yourself to take a step back.

With a quickness that nearly trips you over your own feet, you peer behind the mirror. There’s nothing but stone and empty space, as one may normally expect to find behind an old mirror sitting uselessly in a dark, secret dungeon.

Your fingers curl around the edge of the metal coiling around the glass and you stare into the emptiness, wondering how such a wondrous thing exists or if perhaps is nothing but an illusion; is this too part of the torture that had taken place in this cell?

Something in your chest tells you otherwise.

You take a step back, let your eyes shift to the surface of the glass to take another look into that magical room and see what other wondrous details lay within its little world.

When your gaze falls back to the mirror, it takes you a moment to realize that you’re not staring into the room anymore. Something has changed in the half-minute or so that you’d looked away and, in the span of a heartbeat, you stare, awestruck, as a second pair of eyes stare back at you.

They’re part of a face so completely inhuman that you’re not quite sure how to react. Elven. You know very little of Xadia, but enough to pick out the basic features of its people, or at least the bare assumption of its people.

Pointed ears, horns adorning their head, sharp eyes and skin that seems to glow with all the colors of the night sky. The figure stares at you in silent return–it takes you a few moments to realize that their eyes look just as surprised as you feel to see them. Wide, blinking with something between awe and shock, and in their hands is a book they must have been reading but several moments ago.

By the time you think to take a step back from the mirror, the elf’s look of shock is gone, and instead is replaced by something with more assurance, more confidence laced in their golden, star-bright eyes.

You stare in frozen stupidity as the elf has enough time to put away the book and return to the mirror, head tilted to one side and a certain _eagerness_ to their step.

They approach the mirror. A smile starts to tug at the corners of their lips as they gesture for you to do the same.

“You’re uh,” you say, remembering that you can speak. “You’re gonna have to give me a reason. I don’t make it a habit to listen to strange elves I meet in mirrors.”

The elf purses their lips and furrows their brows for a moment. Their lips open, then shut, and that’s when you realize that they might not even be able to hear you. The logic seems sound even though you’re not quite sure where it comes from, just another gut feeling in your belly that seems accurate enough to trust.

Well, it’s a bit of a conundrum. You have no intention of stepping closer towards the mirror again, but this elf seems unable to hear or even speak to you. Maybe it’s something with the magic of the mirror–maybe it only allows the vision of one side to reach the other–

-maybe that’s what the items on the table had been used for.

Oh. _Oh_. It suddenly begins to make sense to you, the curious objects and blood-speckled knife. Some sort of dark magic, though you’re unsure if it’s dark magic that created the mirror’s magical portal or simply allowed Viren the ability to speak to the entity standing on the other side.

Either way, if dark magic was in any way involved, you certainly aren’t going to be easily trusting of this elf.

They stare at you for a few moments more and then, with still-pursed lips, let out a sigh. You can see their chest heave gently with the motion despite being unable to hear it, those golden eyes trained on you all the while. Like a predator.

An idea comes to you after a few moments, creative enough to try and foolish enough to work.

It takes a few moments for your hands to remember the motions, a language of movement than sounds that you learned enough from Gren in the times he’s spent at the castle and furthered from books and mentors from across the kingdom.

You gesture widely with open palms, point towards the elf in the mirror, and then tap the sides of your fore and middle finger one one hand to the other. The question is simple, but it’s complex enough so that you can learn if the other understands you or not.

_‘What is your name?’_

Golden eyes blink slowly at you. It’s not a look of confusion in their face, but of curious recognition that leaves you feeling a little nervous, as if under a heavy weight that almost seems familiar to you. Almost like the pressure just a few minutes before.

You almost feel stupid, standing there with your hands possibly making empty gestures if the other doesn’t even know how to interpret them. Just as you’re about to rub a hand over your face you watch the other move, their hands making slow and deliberate motions of a response.

_‘My name is Aaravos.’_

It takes a few moments for you to put the letters of their name together in your head, string them up close enough so that your lips can start to form the sounds you assume it makes.

“Aaravos?” you say eventually, letting your lips and tongue shape the vowels.

The elf nods after a moment–so they can hear you; that answers a question, leaving you at least with the knowledge that verbal communication can go in one direction at least.

“It’s…nice to meet you?” you finally say, cautious and unsure. “I hope you don’t find my shock unbecoming. I…didn’t exactly expect to find a magical mirror down here in a secret dungeon.”

There’s a quirk of one of their brows–amusement, most likely–and they respond with a gentle, if a little dramatic flip of their hands.

_‘You’re not the first human to meet me.’_

“I assume the other one is Lord Viren?”

Another quirk of their brow, a little higher; you have their attention.

“He is the advisor to the king. Or, well, he _was…_ he’s been arrested for crimes against the kingdom and will be put to trial. I…am responsible for making sure he’s not hidden anything dangerous down here.”

Aaravos tilts their head to one side, then the other, as if weighing your words. There’s a glimmer of knowledge in their eyes that certainly don’t get past your notice: they must know Viren to some degree, though you can’t be certain of the relationship’s depth or shape. For all you know, the elf could be a key conspirator, a close ally that has aided Viren into his numerous charges.

 _‘You’ll not find any danger with me,’_ the elf signs, motions deliberate and gentle so you can follow them with ease. _‘One may call me but a humble advisor as well.’_

You let the situation settle into your chest for a few moments. It’s a lot to take in, a lot more to filter. Already there’s been the discovery of one of Katolis’ highest commanders chained up and held prisoner literally beneath the castle, evidence of torture and some form of magical mirror with an elf of unknown origin–all of these things Viren has hidden away, leaving you to try and piece together the details as if they’d come together in a perfect puzzle of meaning.

But there’s no meaning to be found; the puzzle is far from complete, leaving too many gaping holes of confusion and questions to his reason and intentions that it takes you a few moments to realize that Aaravos is signing something at you.

They repeat the motion when its obvious you were too lost in thought to read it.

_‘I’ve told you my name, it’s only polite you tell me yours.’_

There’s a glimmer in their eyes, an inethreal glow to the glittering freckles over their cheeks. It’s hard to place the expression on their face, but it leaves you feeling small, as if under the gaze of something powerful and old and magical–considering the situation, you can’t find doubt in any of those things. You need to be cautious, but there’s a definite sense of social correctness that overpowers your fear and nervousness.

You sign your name to the other, one letter at a time, feeling almost that signing was safer than speaking it out loud–as if the sound itself had a power you didn’t wish to give them.

Aaravos weighed your name in their gaze for a moment, eyelids falling half-shut for a moment as if to enjoy it, the name, in their thoughts.

 _‘A lovely name,’_ they sign. _‘Though most humans wouldn’t give their name so willingly to an elf.“_

“And here I was trying not to stereotype.”

Though you can’t hear it, you watch as Aaravos chuckles, holds a hand up to their lips despite the fact that they are as silent as the night, the sound not leaving whatever confines that exist on the other side of the mirror. The twinkling over their cheeks grow brighter for but a moment, fading away into background glowing when they finally seem to catch themselves once more.

There’s a gentle grin on Aaravos’ lips.

_‘You need not fear, I cannot do anything with a name alone.’_

They purse their lips, then you see their eyes flick to the side–over to the table with the blood-speckled knife. You don’t follow those golden eyes.

_‘You said that you are exploring these dungeons, that Viren is arrested?’_

You can almost hear the question despite never once hearing their voice. In the same respect, you notice that there is a discerning lack of shock in Aaravos’ expression; perhaps they already know what’s happened to the mage, left to their own existence and maybe even trapped in the mirror itself.

It’s not something you’d put past dark magic.

“Yes, I did,” you try to sound as official as possible. “I…have to make my leave now, actually. I didn’t plan to explore for long and I….”

The thoughts of everything feels like a mountain of rocks all pressing at your mind. The weight of it all alone makes you feel exhausted.

“…I need to rest.”

You let out a sigh, knowing that there’s still so much to get done, so much to explore and mark and learn–you still need to interrogate Gren about his captivity and start making some sort of map of this unknown section of the dungeon and that’s not even getting into reporting this all to Opeli–

Anxiety feels so much like an ocean pressing down on you. It’s a familiar thing, as horrible as that might be, but it’s something you’ve felt enough as a castle keeper and recognize without much issue. You know your limits and by god, you’ve hit it at least twice over with all of this magical mirror shit.

You look up to see Aaravos standing on the other side of the mirror. Their eyes stare at you, just as they’ve been staring at you since the moment your gaze met with theirs. You almost expect there to be a cold distance, a curiosity perhaps, but you’re momentarily taken aback to see a thin look of concern more than anything else. Despite the fact that you and the elf know next to nothing about one another and have all the reasons in the universe not to trust one another (perhaps more for you than for them), they still look genuinely concerned for your exhaustion and ills.

_‘Unless you speak of it to someone, I’m certain my mirror will still be here after you’ve been able to rest.’_

You want to ask why they even care, but that’s when your brain decides that it doesn’t really matter. The weight of everything seems to come down over you, leaving you better off taking the advice to heart and continuing the conversation later, when you’ve had the time to lay your head on a pillow.

“We will have more to talk about,” you finally say, some level of authority in your voice. “I will return tomorrow to ask more about what Viren has conspired about with you, and if you have helped him in any way. I expect that you will at least comply with my questioning.”

You’re not sure if it’s a good idea to give Aaravos that sort of detail, but you assume that they are not a fool–anyone in their position could assume that you would need to ask about it, considering the situation.

Aaravos merely looks at you, one brow lifted while their head tilts to one side. Though you’ve scarcely ever seen an elf of Xadia in your entire lifespan, it doesn’t take intimate knowledge across the difference in culture and species to understand an expression of amusement painted over their face.

But it’s how you leave Aaravos, using the light from the mirror to help guide you out the door (which you close behind you) and down the hallway. Once at the end, the faint light from the top of the spiraling staircase is enough to lead you back towards the entrance, where you alert a guard to ensure that nobody else enters while you sleep.

* * *

Deep below Katolis Castle, within the cold stone walls of the dungeon and hidden away in shadow, the mirror sits. It still glows with an impossible, magical light, still gives view into a realm of something entirely _other_ as Aaravos stands before the mirror of his side of the connection.

He peers into the darkness for a few moments, expression turned stern and curious, memory fondly turning over the look of your face as one might the pages of a book. Curious, intriguing.

There was an odd connection to you that he felt, that he’s still feeling. He assumed that the thread had been only to Viren, to a fellow mage yet privy to the knowledge and intention that Aaravos had for him and his goals. The elf certainly didn’t expect for his material connections to be two-fold, but surprise and loathing are two wholly different emotions; he only feels one of them.

There’s something special about you,

and he's _excited_ to learn more.


End file.
